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T O P I C R E V I E W

Robert Pearlman

NASA release

Naming of Mission Control Center

NASA is recognizing Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., America's first human space mission flight director, by naming the mission control center in his honor for his service to the nation and its space programs.

As flight director, Kraft managed all of the Mercury and several Gemini missions, and was in that role for America's first human spaceflight, first human orbital flight, and first spacewalk. He also was one of the designers and implementers of the Mission Control Center, the heart of all NASA crewed space missions.

Kraft joined NASA's predecessor agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, in 1945. In 1958, he joined the newly created NASA as one of the original members of the Space Task Group organized to design and manage Project Mercury. He moved from Langley Research Center in Virginia with that group to Houston in 1962, and was assigned to develop the facilities, systems and techniques necessary to support human spaceflights.

Kraft served as director of the Johnson center from January 1972 to August 1982. After his retirement from federal service in 1982, he served as an aerospace consultant for numerous companies.

Speaking at April 14 naming ceremony, which will include an unveiling of the building's new nameplate, will be Mike Coats, JSC center director; John McCullough, current chief of NASA flight director's office; Gene Kranz, Kraft's successor as flight director and former director of Mission Operations, and Glynn Lunney, a former flight director who worked with Kraft, and also a former Space Shuttle Program manager and vice president of United Space Alliance.

mjanovec

I saw that Kraft's name was already installed in large letters on the outside of the building (on both sides) when I visited JSC last Saturday. I was a little puzzled by that, having never heard (before now) that the building was to be named in his honor.

Congratulations to Christopher Kraft for the well deserved honor!

Fra Mauro

He certainly deeserves the honor! However, what will Mission Control be used for after June?

Robert Pearlman

The International Space Station, which has a continuously staffed Flight Control Room and multiple back room support teams.

NASA held a ceremony on Thursday to name its "magnificent cathedral of manned spaceflight," the Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, after the man who not only led the space agency's first missions, but who 50 years ago, laid the foundation for what Mission Control would come to be...

The original plan for my visit was simply to tour the one restored Apollo-era mission control room, to take plenty of pictures, and to give Ars readers a good technical understanding of how "Mission Control" worked during the Apollo era. NASA, however, upped the ante when it assigned my tour guide — none other than Sy Liebergot.

LM-12

Some interior views of the photographs lining the walls of Mission Control Houston, including the lobby and MCC viewing room. Not sure if it looks like that today.